“Should one aim at portraying objects that are perpetually in flux or, better, that are transformed by our very description of them, like this page?”
- Harry Matthews
"It's impolite to sit outside a burning building. Even if that fucked and burning building is the only one still on the block."
- Blake Butler
Kiss your family, it's time to talk about this Games As Art business. I saw that eye twitch, allow me explanation. This won't be a dewy-eyed plea to see everything or nothing as art, both of these arguments are for the weak, and weak people die in video games. Nor is it a contrarian edict in which I insist all games are a shit on a ground and if you tell me to think they're anything other than a shit on the ground I knock you over, piss on your back and make you make friends with that shit on the ground 'til I'm certain both of you'll be recounting this very story at your wedding.
You're my confidant in all of this, Reader Of A Video Game Website, and that's not how confidants are getting it done here in the bleak dystopia that is 2013.
A question you may be asking right now, aside from “how over-written this going to get?”, is “isn't good writing all about conveying your message implicitly? Tell, not show? Aren't all these explicit overstatements of intent the kind of sub-Charlie-Brooker shit first year journalism students jettison onto their second-best tumblrs these days?” Point well made, point well made.
I put to you, though, that sometimes you have to tell people what something isn't for them to truly grasp what it is.
And so despite trusting completely your skills of deduction, hard-won from spending hours in front of games which regularly give you explicit instructions via giant flashing text, I'm going to let you in on my secret agenda when it comes to the perenial Games As Art slap fight.
I honestly don't give a fuck. I don't think you should either. In fact you may have been vigourously propelling all your givable fuck up the wrong tree altogether this whole time.
The catalyst for this whatever this is can be tracked to the still-ongoing critical pie fight over Bioshock Infinite or, as it is colloquially known in the bedsit from which I write, System Shock 5: A-Lot-Of-People-Secretly-Like-Steampunk-It-Turns-Out. Now, before Sean Bell backs me into an alleyway and annouces he means to teach me who the “Biggest Fucking Daddy Of All” is as punishment for deception, I should tell you right out that I haven't actually played Skyoshock. Not a second of it.
Thus I'm not really qualified to comment on whether or not the whole “I am a sick steampunk bro, energy drinks give me the powers from Hexen, my invincible assistant throws me money in between my gnarr-ass Monster Kills and I murder people with the worst crow pun imaginable” reality of the game has a detrimental effect on the impact of its impossibly-intriciate setting. Same goes for presiding over whether or not the “oh, people with causes are a brutal lot, eh?..duality of man, innit?..btw wounded knee was a bit pants...lol” story really is as mind-blowing as people seem to feel it is.
It'd be especially inappropriate for me to mention how ridiculous it is that so many games of “this is a serious medium” soggy biscuit broke out among North Face-wearing blogger pubebeards over the DEEP MESSAGE of this game or how these squads of prospective be-fedora'd ejaculators began their most passionate pumping upon clocking said game's treatment of “Issues” despite them amounting to half-heartedly acknowledging racism existed and then sort of forgetting it for EMOTIONAL SCI FI EVENTS (unless the “racism is as bad as QTEs parallel” was intentional, in which case: fair play.)
Finally it's nowhere near my right to highlight that You'll-Believe-A-War-Criminal-Can-Fly-oshock falls into the trap of positioning racism as a Horrible Histories anecdote, a long dealt-with icky thing happening far in the past that designers have used as window dressing for a general sense of unease rather than acknowledging that it's still endemic in society to this day and continues to rot the core of every aspect of gaming like a fucking cancer. If I did say this I'd proably add that it really contradicts the whole Gaming Is Smart And Gamers are Special Men narrative that's been hanging off the back of the promotion cycle for this thing like a tractor trailer full of shit.
But I can't. Game still unplayed, assertions like that just aren't mine to make.
Like me, you may have observed some of the gaming's most-eager-to-sound-wise voices stamping their feet over Skyoshock's setting warranting so much more love and attention than simply rushing past in the background as kill-wank your way around from sweet death animation to sweet death animation.
For what it's worth, all the video of it I've watched on the internet, in my capacity as Worst Games Scumbag, leads me to believe this isn't the case and, in fact, the overwhelming, blinding, toxic nature of conflict and violence is kind of the point?
The plot, with its many twists and turns, pretty much sits at the level of a well-recieved Doctor Who episode (Doctor Who is a popular children's TV program). All story in games really is total shit, though, so this particular one being recieved as it it were a lost collaboration between Phillip K Dick, Don Carpenter and Steve Erickson isn't surprising. But gaming does theme far better than story and, of what I've seen, Bioshock makes a fair stab at being some kind of ruminantion of violence and guilt (hey, maybe the apparently-boring, half-formed combat mechanics are on purpose?)
Yet the men who got angriest about whatever it was Phil Fish said that time feel like it'd be better without any of this. “Kissy kiss”, they whisper to the bit at the start, “kiss kiss on your face, you changed the world”. This eagerness to praise Skyoshock's everything else and crap on the very existence of its combat is real badge of honour for Discerning Gamers Who Are Ready To Get The Depth. As always, these people are dumb as a sack of hammers.
To wit: the point of Bioshock Infinite, to not be an asshole about it for a second, seems to be that man did a lot of fucked up things, these things rotted man's soul and now man will damage man at slightest provocation because he believes redemption is impossible. A game about the oppressiveness of guilt and the dangers of hubris is perfectly well-served by the irredeemable shitbag main character mechanically committing endless, casual acts of gruesome violence.
And those acts of violence need to be sick as fuck because, guess what buddy, this is videogame country.
There's a strange idea permeating some quarters of the gaming community, an oxymoron of ever there was one, that wily ol' Ken Levine pulled a fast one on the fat cats up in the corporate office when he got them to greenlight ZepplinShock.
When taking a break from sweating in wrong ways over the impossibly-proporitioned, vast-eyed, anime woman, an act gamers are calling “developing an emotional connection to an NPC unlike any game has done before”, the chin-stroking men of vidgames have been seen to lament the killing-the-men-game Binfinite's world is built to host while also deeming it a necessary evil that had to be done in order to fund this secret baroque world of “exquisitve interactive set pieces” or whatever other flowery quisling shit the bloatee-ed are using these days to distinguish themselves from men who own the small Halo helmet.
"I want to put on a good show, like Hitler or any other performance artist"
- William T Vollmann
What a genius Ken Levine is, they tweeted, tricking the bussinessmen into thinking he was producing a marketable power fantasy, shoot-the-men game with rad kills, combat gimmicks and a lady for the fellas to drool over; an act of grand subterfuge he used as cover for what he was actually concoting. Which happened to be a well-made, detail-rich power fantasy, shoot-the-men game with rad kills, combat gimmicks and a lady for the fellas to drool over. Truly God's maverick alive on earth.
Irrational didn't make some earth-changing cultural moment disguised as a shooter. They made a lovely-to-look at, 'honestly the art direction's a bit too much like an up-rezed Clive Barker's Undying but I've a feeling that might be just me', shooter with a seriously impressive amount of detail, design and colour. Still, the way the combat is executed, a different matter than its mere presence, makes it clear this game is a big budget shooter first and a message-board-find-the-hidden-meaning-belly-bump fest a distant second.
But, and it's a big but I cannot lie, somewhere in this discourse manure pile rots an issue actually worth spreading on your rhubarb. What if 'old Kenners' really had rolled up the sleeves of his slightly-too-tight black polo and straight-up created an environment for you to walk around in? Nothing more, nothing less.
What if Ken hadn't even included some kind of Myst-style mechanics puzzle where you have to rotate the gears to turn the infinite cop machine off (Infinite Cop Machine should be a powerviolence band by the time you finish reading this). What if he didn't build in some arch satirical sim of a obstensible rudimentary task or even a detective story where you go around clicking on clues.
What if in this world didn't have an Elizabeth constantly propelling story beats and ammo at you with great speed. I know this is especially difficult to imagine as it would create the unthinkable consequence of deleting the apparent major human rights victory that is her presence. No more could the millions gather on the street to chant: “not only is game's eye candy woman scanning as 'classy', she also distinguishes herself from other women by not needing to be protected and sometimes she stares at you with big eyes! We did it, everyone! This is practically Valerine Solanis: the video game! And it's a bit like Ico and everything!”
Still, work really hard and I know you can manage it.
What if the space was it, though? You'd move through it, examine everything, overhear conversations and soak it all in. You choose who to follow and what information to glean. Something akin to Sleep No More, the silent noir version of Macbeth set in a hotel where each room cotains a different facet of the story playing out. The audience can wander around at their leisure, observing what they wish. The reward is the experience.
Doesn't that sound interesting? Just existing in a virtual....wait.
Are you getting the same sick feeling in your guts as I am? That evil, sick feeling like someone's taken a shit inside your body. It's dread. Let's give that dread a name:
"Fuck, you're not going to fucking ask me to think about Video Games As Art, are you?”
This urge is a toxic one but this urge is understandable. Whose fault is this voice in our head?
"If anyone knows what is going on ever, then hey,
I am here, it would be nice to talk some time
Infomercials have started and I kind of want to die
I'm pretty sure this one is actually for a morgue..."
- Daniel Bailey
If you've waded this far into my shit then one can assume you, Reader of A Video Game Website, are a reader of a video game website and therefore have spent some time for your sins in the torrid world of Mature and Serious Gaming Websites so beloved of the “I'm a Grown-Up Gamer, Someone Better Be Taking Me Seriously” set.
These sites present a more or less identical infromation and insight as regular games sites, but slather themselves hilariously conspicious Clean Graphic Design, textually distinguish themselves by inverting the bro:smug ratio and pepper themselves with occasional, oft-unreadable and basically-identical REAL JOURNALISM IS HERE accounts of game studios closing to fulfill the same “I'm an insider, me” onanistic need that drives all of the delusional, “self-aware”, accounts of games preview events shit forth by hobby bloggers hundreds of times a week.
There are a couple of article templates for what these unfortunately-waistedcoated pseuds pump out. All of them have a jist that would appeal to ZepplinShock's anti-violence crew: hey, games and us gamers are actually Real Smart and Real Special.
The “wonder of online gaming” is a feature you'll have seen a lot. You know: these two systems analysts who live far away from each other managed to kill WOW baddies so hard they got married. This, you see, means games are basically Hitch and cause Hitch is Will Smith who is also the Fresh Prince and lol 90s is the current dominant cultural movement of the now that games are basically our Over Culture. QED.
Or it'll be insisted that hey video games are the next level of human interaction, just like that Snowcrash foretold, because this crusty old white dude kills the men on CoD every day and fuck man, he's nearly dead in real life (gamers really can't get enough paeans to the plucky spirit of 60 year-old middle class white guys living in a first world country who sit on a couch and play games).
(Incidentally it should be noted that a corrective exists to the unstopping tide of facile articles on the importance of online gaming that turn it into a sideshow of relationships, old people and techno goths who don't want to wear their purple dreads on the streets but can do it online.
That corrective is this very site: Midnight Resistance. My own interest in online gaming extends to registering the gamertag Karateman420 and never playing online again yet even I can recognise that the best, bar none, actual and accessible journalism about the many different kinds of multiplayer experience one can have is being exhaustively carried out right here with true verve and generousity of spirit in a way with which anyone can engage.
That's the best Midnight Resistance joke of all, to be honest, these fuckers are some of the few gaming writers actually doing the Big Work, they're just too modest to realise. I tune out any coverage of online gaming on other sites but I listen up close when I it appears on here. Why? 'Cause I know Top Men are on it.)
[EDITOR'S NOTE: We did not ask McTiernan to say any of this. Swear to god.]
To return to circling the point like a holiday dad trying to find parking: another hoary old chestnut SRS GAEMS sites repeatedly dredge up is “are games art?”
Your monster does a shit in Black And White and then it might throw it at people for a bit. Is that the same sort of good as like, you know, fucking paintings?
Often if the article is being written by the rising figure of Down To Earth Game Dude Cuttin' Through The Crap these pieces will include a panicked addendum angrily demanding assurance that if “our games” do turn out to be fucking paintings now this wont mean shuttering the CoD shop for good and dedicating “our” gaming lives to tittyfucking every craven impulse jpg-shirted Johnny Blow sweats out of his shiny smug head from here 'til time immemorial.
At their most diverting, these pieces still usually skip the question of how to interpert creativity behind mechanics and their role in invoking emotional response or the idea of how obstensible agency could affect a creatitive work and instead head straight to marveling at how pretty, immersive and atmospheric some gaming environments can be.
And you know what: good. You really can't talk about that shit enough.
Look at how ZenoClash uses all the tricks of a low-budget sci-fi show to create a phenomenal sense of place. Witness Dark Souls' entire environment becoming just another cog in its vast, stentorian howling desolation generator. Limbo has exactly two tricks up its sleeve but it uses them so well you'll never forget your time with it. This memory can be used to drift off to a soft and happy place of appreciation when some dickhead tries to tell you the game is too simple or too basic. (I get it man, I've heard of I Want To Be The Guy, too.) Sword And Sworcery's world feels like that woozy sensation you get in Final Fantasy VII in the secret bit where you find the little birds' nest when you're stoned in your small-and-metal-nerd friend's bedroom on a school night.
When environments in videogames manage to supercede mere functionality and create a real sense of being somewhere, it creates a magic that cinema has been tapping into for years. It's no surprise, for instance, that STALKER is one of the best examples of this in both mediums.
The first Condemned has it going on; basic as some of those places are, there's a mystery that has nothing to do with the episode of Bum Fights you're filming in it.
There's levels in the Batman Forever Genesis game that felt powerfully sad and eerily disconnected in a way that works with the photograph spirtes to give the game a surprising amount of gravity.
Sheep Dog and Wolf on the PSOne has this awesome smoky quality due to Silent-Hill-esque pop-in and necessary fog that, when combined with the really excellent cel-shaded cartoon world, created a uniquely dreamlike experience.
These things are great to talk about and great to experience. So great that sometimes it feels like that game is getting in the way a bit. So naturally some “games” have recently begun to do away with the game part altogether.
"If it’s drowning you’re after, don’t torment yourself with shallow water"
- Irish Proverb
Dear Esther is an exampe of this. Walk around, get a sense of a story, exist and leave. It means a lot to many but it angered even more. Why? Here it is on my game's site and there's no tombs to raid, mate.
Look at Proteus. Proteus is beautiful and weird and I probably like it a bit too much because of personal reasons. But man, no loot drops? Get up the yard.
Worthwhile, if niche, experiences both. But the debates sparked by “games” like this, where the goal is existence and observance, have to be some of the most inane I've ever encountered:
“Hundreds of artists made this, pal” goes up the refrain even the more reliable members of the games press sometimes tout without realising how perfect a self-parody it is “that means it's even more art than your single art, it's like a hundreds arts at once!”
“They put a toilet in an art gallery, I've never cried at a toilet...on one at lunchtime in school, sure, but...anyway, I weep about Final Fantasy 7 to this very day! OWNED, THE ART ESTABLISHMENT....SCARE QUOTES AROUND GAME AND SCARE QUOTES AROUND ART FROM NOW ON!”
Or worse still:
“This isn't a game, there's no way to be good at it. Why am I playing it if it's not a game. This is for possible sexual deviants and people who don't get Banter. This is appalling. Where are the mans? This is forcing me to question an element of what I enjoy. I didn't get into this to think. It's the narrow thing I want it to be. Fuck you. I am being smugly, stridently anti-intellectual which is the easiest and therefore best shortcut to sounding smart. Fuck you. Stop enjoying the Not Game, man of ass. Stop telling me to think you fucking STUDENT FUCK.”
Ugh. Christ. Just think about it. Picture that skinny red-faced man with a Gears of War sticker on his alienware laptop bellowing in orgamsmic victory as he plets you, these “games” and these debates with his reddit-approved brand of “logic”.
Every single time I see or hear it I want to walk into the ocean.
You know what though: fuck these people.
Take the ownership of the discourse around these things away from them. Experiences llike this are “virtual worlds.” And Virtual Worlds are fully a real thing people talk about. If you call them, as many who use them in humanities to great effect do already, maybe idiots would stop using them as an excuse to press their tiny ball bags up on their screen.
The false dilemma which posits that experiences are only valid and worthwhile if they're a game and the “I know what a game is mate, I've made Master Chief kill the men more times than you've hugged your family like a pussy” arguements are as annoying as they are inevitable. So just reject them.
“Keep talking about moving toxic wastes but never let it cross your mind to quit producing them.”
- Squeaky Fromme
When those who enjoy virtual world experiences take up their inanate “GAME”-ness as a cause, it is also annoying as it is inevitable. They will over-praise the Dear Esthers of the world, coming up with all sorts of fucked up definitions of “game” and “entertainment” just to crowbar them into the same category as Advance Wars and Colin McCrae's Rally. Experiences like Proteus are their ace in the hole when it comes to proving games are art.
Virtual Worlds feel distinguished enough, strange enough, engrossing enough and provoking-of-emotion enough that if these things could be ratified as games then it'd prove games are Art and a pointless, nothing argument among pointless, nothing people could be won. These people don't care that by dragging Virtual Worlds into a false binary they are stunting any growth of critical understanding and popularity that might happen. They don't care that by forcing a weird thing to be recognised as a game they've tacitly admitted they think “art” just means “a bit hard to grasp” and thus have shit on their own cause.
Of course they don't care about that. They just want to win an argument on the internet.
"A prize is invariably only awarded by incompetent people who want to piss on your head and who do copiously piss on your head if you accept their prize."
- Tomas Bernhard
These aren't games, friend, and they're not here to fight the games-are-art battles that you so desperately need to have in the hopes some imaginary wise adult somewhere will dole out imaginary validation to your hobby.
And not only is it okay for these Virtual Worlds not to be games, it's a bloody sweet release.
'Til now, the only real finanical point, outside of eduction and academic purposes, in building a virtual world was so you could set a game in it. Interesting and dense as you could make the place, the focus would still have to be the game and its playing, whatever form that took.
But perhaps there's people, those who enthuse eloquently about where games are, and how where they are is, who are actual virtual world fans. People who struggled manfully through the game 'cause they got to see where they were playing it through. They wanted to visit another world so much they actually dealt with the hassle of playing Another World. Did you see the fictional red-faced man there? He just threw up with anger. And now he's screaming something: “these people aren't real gamers! Gaming is about masturbating to memories of your childhood! And to a lesser extent: being made to feel skillful!”
Now the tools definitely exist so that small teams can create interesting, navigable worlds on a modest scale and it would appear the audience exists to buy them. But as long as they're going getting lumped in with video games, the kind of incognate argument in the last paragraph is going to forever be associated with them. And if that sticks, everyone's going to want Virtual Worlds to fuck off.
So just cut the cord.
The gaming audience would initially appear to be a good base with which to drum up support for the Virtual Worlds medium but their baggage is more toxic than it's worth.
There are so many avenues now and such powerful tools for creating communities that Virtual Worlds meant for entertainment can stand on their own, esepcially if there's any crossover from the numerous people in academia and the humanities already incredibly excited by the possibilites they contain.
This dissassociation with the word and concept of “games” extends to more than just a matter of appeal. When creating navigable environments for games purposes, and why it'd be so rad to see what Virtual Worlds could do if they freed themselves from gaming's shackles, on some level they're always the fucking same.
There's always a man, there's always a city and it's always a shitehouse.
Sean is a proud future corpse who tends to a comic collection in Rathmines.